ADFTEAM

K i'm looking at getting 2 new gfx cards but not sure which brands are best.

I'm looking at http://www.auspcmarket.com.au at the 8500's 512MB ones and i dont know which is better, Inno3D are the cards i've got at the moment and I'm not sure i like them. I was once warned of PointOfView, and have heard the Gainward and leadtek are about neck and neck. Also i'm a bit nervous about this heat pipe stuf. Does it realy work? Is there any thing I need to Know about it? I know the theory behind how it works but i'm not sure that it will work as well up here with an average of 31C days with no fan.

have you considered buying one really good card instead of 2 cheaper ones and maybe buying another one in a few months to 12 months...or you want 2 now regardless?

What about this article

http://www.dansdata.com/askdan00005.htm

Personally, I think it wouldn't be a bad idea to buy one 7950 GT, or indeed one 8800 GTS, and see how it goes on the games you enjoy. If it's not fast enough, buy another identical one a few days later.

yep 8500, 8600, 8800 what ever you can afford and buy aniother down the track i reckon unless youve got the money now if so buy 2 now

I got a Albertron 8600GTS 256MB 128Bit with a clock speed of 2000Mhz straight out of the box
and its SLI aswell so hoping to get another in the new year but it runs quick by itself so not shure
wether ill need another hey.

K so I buy 1 now how do i go about getting another one with the same compatibility down the track? are cards from different batches compatible wouldn't i need 2 at the same time to ensure they are compatible?

Nope, as long as they are the same make/model, they'll be SLi compatable.

Even different makes/models can work together as long as they are both SLi, it's just not recommended.

KK thanks for the info. the thing is i can get 2 x 1024MB 8600gt's for $60 less than 1 x 512MB 8800gt. wouldnt i be better going for the 2x8600 which will give me 2GB gfx ram?

What i'm asking is the 2 x 600mHz gpu's with 2GB ram @ 1000mHz better than 1 gpu @ 600mHz with 512MB ram @ 1800mHz? surly 2x600/1000mHz is better than 1x600/1800mHz

This is the 8600 i'm looking at for $181.50 each

http://www.digitalpromo.co.uk/gainward- ... -2623.html

Does it matter that these cards all say "Built for vista" even though i'm using xp? they should still be compatible.....Shouldn't they?

Yeah, "Built for Vista" just means they're DX10 compliant and can run all the shiny stuff.

Also, goto a hardware guide website and check the comparisons between the 2 cards you can get.

Check the basic fps' of each and all that

Yeah... the AA Tracker forum has some good info about cards too I've read. On particular post had a detailed comparison of 2 cards with FPS, overclocking, the works. Also if you're not going to play AA that much/not at all you might want to look at some forums that are specifically about the game you're going to play, and then looking in the hardware software section (most forums have these nowadays).

And as to what to buy, you're better off looking at it in detail and not just speed and memory.

And have you tried looking at the 8800 ultra? I mean I don't know your budget but if you can afford one now, and maybe one next year you'll be COOKING (it's a dual slot card so make sure that you have 4 x video slots )

arent the ultras as long as the gts? cos my case is about 8mm too short to fit a gts. also where do i go to compare sli'd 8600 with a single 8800?

was just reading this article (BTW how do i make it so that the link is just a "here" instead of 3000 words long?) http://au.gamespot.com/features/6153327/index.html

Click Here

and was wondering if the 8600's i was looking at were decent? ie. where do i find how many "pixel pipelines" they have? cos I'm leaning towards the 2 8600's each one has the same gpu speed as the 8800 and no 8800 gt's are any faster than 50mHz over the 8600 the only difference is that the 8800 is 800mHz faster on the ram side but it only has 512 of it where as the 8600's have a gig each. I know i'm sounding like a noob acording to that article but unless you can say the 8600 only has 4 pixel pipelines while the 8800 has 10 or 12 i cant see that the 8800 is better for the money than 2 8600's



Fack now my head is going to explode trying to sort all this info


BOOM

Ive always found the price is a good starting point....generally (not always) the higher the price the better the card.

basically you want to look for at least 128-bit, and i recommend DDR3 memory structure on the card,The amount of memory is not that crucial but you want at least 256mb.For to long now people have bought cards on the popular theory that more rams means better performance, but in actual fact a 256-bit DDR3 256mb card will out do a 128-bit DDR2 512mb card by leaps and bounds.

so in short you want

• DDR3 or GDDR3 memory
  minimum 128-bit
  minimum 256mb.

something like this should do... eVGA e-GeForce 8600GTS PCI-E 256MB 128-bit DDR3,

but remember the better the card the more it will cost you.Try to get the GTS if you can afford it.

LOL @ you all

I have a good one that will last me for years and I rock!!

When will you ever be happy baby.

when i can play CoD4 with high settings without having my system crash. at the moment if i try to put any AA or smothe smoke edges get 5 min in a game and my system crashes. And at the moment i have to have most of the other settings on low so that I can have high map settings.

I always have my settings on high and I can play great with a 8600

K i'm going to get the 2 8600's